Show EDISON centennial early earl y efforts backfired Back fired but lessons lasting fame Pea features tures during his lifetime thomas A edison found time to root around in about backyard doping out a gadget or a machine or a formula that would help his neighbor he was crammed with ideas about many things some of which as everybody knows brought him enduring fame there were some however that his 84 years did not give him time to perfect As the anniversary of his birth on february 11 1847 approaches pro aches there are probably very few people who know that edison once won a patent on a flying machine a back in 1910 he doped out an idea on a helicopter in which field he thought the future of aviation lay on another occasion he was granted a patent on a method of f preserving fruit and when he died he was working on a formula tor for extraction of 0 rubber from the lowly goldenrod wizard was human E edison d ISO once even worked on an insecticide and this experience shows a human side that belles belies any suggestion that he had a magic thumb in the inventive business he was just coming into tame fame as the wizard of menlo park when he was approached by a neighboring farmer whose principal crop was threatened with destruction by an invasion of potato bugs the year was 1878 tom was 31 and he already had to his credit such inventions vent ions as the phonograph and a score of telegraph patents the farmer allowed as how an up and coming young inventor ought to be able to find a way to kill off the potato bugs accepting the challenge although he knew relatively nothing about bugs and plants edison collected a quart bottle full of potato bugs and set forth to compound a lethal potion testing every chemical in his laboratory he hit upon of carbon as a surefire sure fire potato bug killer jubilantly he and the farmer sprinkled the infested potato vines and waited to tabulate the results the bugs died like flies but so did the potato vines and edison had to pay the farmer damages for as lie he put it not experimenting properly he never again made the mistake of not ex experimenting enough consequently some of his inventions took him years to perfect and because of his patience the world has become a much better place in which to live his invention of the electric light made necessary a system ol of electrical distribution which brought not ally ably light but also scores of electrical gadgets to the farm home as well as city residence his phonograph put the best music into the home and his numerous other inventions including the motion picture made life easier eader more comfortable and entertaining worked too well veu there was one other of Edi sons creations which backfired back fired but lt it gasn wasn t because he perfected per fechte d it this one on the contrary ay worked too well bell at one time he was working as night telegraph operator in the grand truck railroad r a 6 tation station at stratford junction canada one of the requirements of the job was that edison then 17 must check in on the wire every halt half hour by sending the signal 8 6 in morse code to the train dispatcher at a nearby station edison deplored this arrangement because it prevented him from catching up on the sleep he getting during the daytime which he spent in study md experimentation so he rigged up a device for automatically sending out the signal 6 he hooked up the instrument to the office clock so that every 30 minutes the signal went out over the wire wire thus reassuring the dispatcher that edison ws or the job whereas in fact he was sound asleep this ruse was successful until one night the train dispatcher tried vainly to contact edison on the lie wire bilting oie me of his catnaps cat naps alarmed by the prospect that the stratford Strat foid junction telegraph office was unmanned the dispatcher made ills his way to Edi sons on a handcar lie arrived just in time to find edison blissfully sleeping while the lie young loung inventors machine obediently bolted and dashed the prescribed abed signal sl gial the next day edison started looking for another jot jol but the ex CK pediment perl peri ment proved of incalculable value because it started him on a two highlights in thomas A edl IM sons career are shown in w 1 these pictures top edison Is shown demonstrating his first phonograph at the white alouse on april 18 1878 lower the inventor Is shown oper filing an early and crude model of his first motion picture machine I 1 7 S TA I 1 I 1 5 X 01 41 k I 1 t 3 13 q 0 train of 0 thought that led him first to the invention of a stock ticker and an automatic telegraph thence to the phonograph and later to the motion picture camera earns first money with the idea planted in his mind of constructing telegraph apparatus that would automatically send and record messages edison invented and patented an improved stock ticker it was so much better than the crude tickers which antedated his that a telegraph company paid him for it the first money edison ever received lor for an invention with the edison established a shop in newark N J in 1870 and began the manufacture of stock tickers he was 23 and tor for the first time in his life he had enough money to experiment with the hundred and one ideas that coursed through his agile mind one of a score of telegraphic patents he took out as a result of his experiments in newark was on an automatic telegraph which chic could send and record messages on a strip of paper tape at a rate tar far beyond the speed possible in sending and receiving by hand in seeking to improve his first automatic telegraph edison experimented with a machine employing a turntable covered with a paper disc perforations in the paper disc sent out dots and dashes when the turntable was rotated one day however the turntable was operated at an excessive speed and instead of dots and dashes the result was a mus musical cal hum bum edison was quick to sense the possibilities of his discovery and on july 18 1 1877 he made the following entry in one of the 2500 notebooks he with scientific data and reports before his death at 84 on october 18 1931 just tried experiment with a diaphragm having an embossed point and held against paraffin paper moving rapidly the speaking vibrations are indented nicely and there Is no doubt that I 1 shall be able to store up op and reproduce automatically at any future time the tinman human voice perfectly less than a month later he did just that first movie was talkie ten years later in 1887 edison set out as he later commented to a do tor for the eye what the phonograph did tor for the ear the result was the birth of what today is probably the most glamorous industry in the world the motion picture industry thus it was that the germ of an idea which took root in Edi sons mind when he was fired as a telegraph operator ultimately led to invention of the stock ticker the automatic telegraph the phonograph and the motion picture camera edison edior edi or probably pio bably is best remembered as the inventor inen tor of the first practical incandescent lamp the lamp was a handy symbol ol of achievement seized upon by the tha public but actually it constituted only a small portion of his work in the field ot of electric lighting and power distribution from 1868 when he received his first patent for an electrically energized voting machine until his bis death 63 years later edison created 1097 inventions vent ions lons by far the greatest number of patents ever issued to any one individual lual by the united states patent office the wide range of f his accomplishments ments Is almost nn believable the carbon transmitter that made alexander graham bells telephone a commercial success was an edison invention and for many years the names of both bell and edison appeared on telephone instruments this same transmitter later was adapted t to a radio and served as the first broad broadcasting cas ling microphone perfects telegraphy edison patented a system of 0 telegraphy through space six years before guglielmo marconi made the instrument that earned him the title ol of father of wireless telegraphy edison invented built and operated the first electric railroad to in america some of his patents caused revolutionary changes in the ce cement m p nt industry and as early as 1908 8 he was building cement houses with prefabricated molds he invented an electric automo bile a helicopter a method of making plate glass lie he patented a method of preserving fresh fruits and vegetables in glass containers he devised a machine called the micro for measuring minute heat fractions and another the odoro scope tor for registering t the he presence of odors however slight indefatigable worker before introduction of the typewriter edison invented an electric pen which cut stencils of handwriting so that one letter could be reproduced in illimitable quantities its modern counterpart is the mimeograph machine these and scores of other ere cre actions ions some of great importance and some like his talking doll hardly more than novelties came out ot of Edi sons mind he rued the fact that the day contained only 24 hours because it did not a t give him enough time to do everything he wanted to do his favorite motto and one which he bority dippl displayed ed pr prominently eminently on the walls of his laboratory and offices was a quotation which said there Is no ex expedient to which a man w will I 1 U noti not resort to avoid the berlow labor ol of thinking although edison lived to be 84 he continued to put in long hours a of f study and work right up until a fe lew weeks before his death when friends chided him about n not at retiring rearing to a life of ease his re reply p ly was that therell be plenty of time to think about retiring when I 1 reach tom edison has reached and he has retired but his memory lives on in a thousand creations that have bene berie fitted mankind |